Random thoughts while multitasking my way through life

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Today is the start of my third 3 week section of my 51 week project. Phase 2 (I still think James Bond…) went well with the exception of walking. I am focusing on the positive and moving on to the next section. I am continuing/picking back up on the walks and strength training from Phase 1 and the routines and hopefully more sleep from Phase 2.

During Phase 3 I will be focusing on drinking more water and eating a healthier diet. I think tracking my food daily will be really helpful and keep me focused on eating the right foods. I seriously need to eat more fruit and vegetables. We were doing really well before everyone got sick but then we kind of fell away from that. I guess steamed veggies don’t sound so good when you are sick. Not really surprised. I am going update weekly on Sundays instead of a daily countdown of everything. It gets boring for me to post so I can only imagine how boring it is to read.

Phase 3: Day 1

I am starting Week 2 of Phase 1 today. Week 1 went pretty well, I walked six days out of seven, did my strength exercises every day and I did a fairly good job drinking enough water.

For Week 2, I am hoping for more of the same. I am revising my walking plan. Now that dance classes have started back up for Boo, I realize that getting a walk in before or after class will be nearly impossible. I might be able to walk during class or figure out when to go before we leave for class later in the next several weeks. For right now though, my plan is to walk six days a week. If I can get a stepping workout on Monday night then I will but I will not stress about it. I will continue my plan for strength training. I am adding one new exercise to my upper body routine, and one to my lower body routine.

Phase 1: Day 8….

Today I didn’t take my normal walk. I didn’t remember until it was nearly 9:00pm. We did however go to Home Depot and WalMart. I tracked those trips on Runkeeper and figured out that I had walked about 0.62 miles. Not too shabby. They weren’t at my normal brisk pace but at least I was moving.

I caught up with my strength exercises from yesterday and did some extra stretching.

Apparently, this extra activity and less caffeine is causing me to need more sleep. I went to bed last night before midnight, it was the first time in probably more than two months. I got up around 7:30 to walk Sully to the door on his way out to the office. I fed the dog and let him outside and I went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until nearly 9:30. So, I slept for nearly 9.5 hours give or take fifteen minutes or so. I am usually good with about 7 hours of sleep and occasionally sleeping in on a Saturday or Sunday.

In the last month though, I have cut down on my caffeine intake considerably and I have started to exercise daily. I get sleepy throughout the day and my guess is that my body is still adapting to the reduced amount of caffeine in my system. On a bad day I might have had over 150mg of caffeine a day, maybe more if I ate something that had caffeine in it like chocolate. That figure isn’t really all that high, a heavy intake of caffeine is thought to be at 500 to 600mg a day, that converts to about four to seven cups of coffee.** Coffee upsets my stomach, thinking about drinking that much coffee makes me nauseous. Anyhow, my caffeine intake, on a bad day I hovered around 150mg, most days I was probably closer to 100mg. Now, I am at about 50mg or less.

I’ve cut my caffeine by a lot, that’s a 50% – 66% decrease in about a month. It makes sense that I am feeling some side effects from it. I am at a pretty steady rate now of about 12 ounces a day. I bought some 12 ounce bottles that I can drink at home and not be tempted to go to a drive-thru and get a larger size. I’ve tried before to cut down on my soda intake, there was always something difficult going on that made it difficult to do it, to really get it done. This time I really think I’ve made it to the other side. I don’t feel like I need it or have to have it. Right now it just feels like a habit. I am looking forward to it being something to enjoy on occasion.

Phase 1: Day 6….

I took a shorter walk today. We were at Gramma’s and I walked a small loop in her neighborhood getting about 2/3 of my walk done. I added on some stepping when I got home to make up the difference.

Lower body workout went well. I am thinking about adding some exercises to my workout next week. I also remembered to stretch. Yay!

For the most part, I am a very honest person. I expect honesty from other people and so I extend that same courtesy to others. Don’t get me wrong, I will dance around a touchy subject to save feelings and pride as much as the next person. At the same time though, I will try to convey my honest feelings in instances where it is needed. I harbor no delusions that my friends and family are on constant stand by waiting for my input.

As I strive to be as honest as possible with the people around me, I tend to be less than honest with myself. I want to be more honest with myself, writing it down here I think will help me to stay honest. If I really want to achieve change then I have to be honest, right?

I like this quote that is attributed to Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

It’s so very true. Every year I say I am going to take better care of myself and then every year something comes up and I end up in the same cycle of bad habits. This year I am holding my ground. I honestly feel that there is nothing more important than my health this year. I’ve put it off too long and it happens now. There’s no I’ll start tomorrow, or I’ll skip today and pick up again or any of those excuses. It’s today, it’s now, it’s on…

Phase 1: Day 2…

I wasn’t able to walk due to time issues, instead I did a step workout that burned a comparable number of calories.

That’s Hunter, my sweet Labrador, taken about three years ago. I was asking him if he’d been digging and he was acting casual. Of course, if you look closely he’s got dirt on his nose and on his right paw. I wasn’t buying his innocent act, at all, but he was too cute to be mad at.

Hunter had his thirteenth birthday in October. He was born the same week that Sully and I started dating. In fact, I gave Sully one of his littermates as my first Christmas gift to him. So, when we got married we had two crazy Labradors galloping through the back yard. Playing ball started early, Hunter could barely hold a tennis ball in his mouth and always outlasted the other dogs. Hunter was always the calmer of the two, and adapted well to hanging out in the house. We still have a hard time with Foley being in the house. He gets so excited that he wags his tail until the tip is bleeding.

The sad part of this story is that we lost Hunter tonight. He was such a sweet boy. He was laying in the kitchen while I cooked dinner. I stopped to give him scratch behind the ears and a kiss on his head and brought dinner into the other room. When I went back to the kitchen after dinner he was gone. I am sorry that he was alone but maybe he was just waiting for his goodnight kiss.

Holiday thought…

It’s time to cherish the little moments. Take the time play ball with the dog or pet the cat. The laundry or the sweeping, or even work will still be there in five minutes. Enjoy those little moments because you don’t know how many more might be left.

So, my ankle is better than yesterday but still kind of achy. I made it until about 2:00 this afternoon and then I had to sit. I got my laptop and my drink, put my ankle up with an ice pack. I figured I was ready to write.

NaNo is going pretty well. Changing around the chapter order from my rough draft has helped a lot more than I realized. I’ve already gotten to 12,000 words and I am fairly happy with how it looks (or reads). Hopefully, the rewrites for this story will continue to go as easy.

Today, I am thankful that the elections are over. I was so sick of the commercials, most of the local ads were attacking the other candidate.

I am also really glad that Sully got to work from home today. We both needed it.